Friday, August 17, 2007

According to sources inside both parties, the two state parties in Michigan have agreed to move the state's primary -- legislatively -- to Jan. 15. This is a compromise date out of respect for Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, who really wanted to move the primary to Jan. 8. Others wanted the primary on Jan. 22 as a way to, essentially, play ball with the other early states. There was a nice window being created for a Jan. 22, 2008 event. But by moving to Jan. 15, this will put pressure on the other early states to either entertain a December event or lobby the two national parties to not sanction Michigan at all.

New Hampshire was always unhappy with the Nevada voting second. South Carolina moving up gave it enough of a reason to move up; Michigan skipping ahead of Nevada and South Carolina will transform things from top to bottom.

New Hampshire will move up, likely past Iowa. Consequently, Iowa will try to get an earlier vote, perhaps in early January or late December.

The primaries weren’t supposed to work this way. What if we fixed it this way?: